Tag: reflection

🎉 Happy New Year! 🎉

I hope you all had a fabulous evening celebrating! I spent yesterday over in Scarborough watching Ed in Panto, then we had a gorgeous night in with steak & homemade chips and good telly…but enough of that; I have my ‘1 Second a Day’ video to share with you!

So at the beginning of 2018, I saw a few friends sharing ‘1 Second a Day’ videos from 2017 – one second of film or a photo from every day for an entire year. They were so lovely to watch and it seemed like such a nice way to remember the year – so I started my own for 2018!

AND I’M SO GLAD I DID!…

…I had no idea when I started this little project just how special 2018 would be. As well as some amazing opportunities with work, getting SO into blogging, making new friends and generally just learning so much more, it was a year of epic life events! Getting engaged, booking our wedding, and moving into our first house…it was busy, and at times stressful, but ridiculously amazing 💖

It’s been really nice to capture a little segment of every day of my life for the last 12 months, and watching it back has actually felt quite heart warming! I’ve remembered moments and days that would’ve been lost forever, and it’s been so fun! If anyone was wondering about doing one for 2019, I’d highly recommend it!

In the last few months/years, you can’t deny that there’s been much more media coverage for mental health. Which is amazing. I would never claim to be an expert, nor would I claim to be a big sufferer (it’s never been bad enough to warrant a trip to the GP), but I do get anxiety, from time to time. I didn’t realise until a year or so ago, that virtually everyone I know has been, or is, affected by anxiety in some way. Which, whilst I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone, it’s quite a nice, sobering thought – to know that other people UNDERSTAND how you feel.

I don’t want to go on about it at all, because, full disclosure, I really don’t know an awful lot about it. I just know, that certain situations (or the prospect of certain situations) can really get to me. And this post isn’t going to be an earth shattering, internet breakinglook at the way we live our lives, or facts and assumptions about mental health. It’s just something I’ve realised. That I’m going to leave right here.

The other night, Ed and I had just finished watching something on Netflix, and a trailer automatically started playing once the credits had started rolling: it was for Derren Brown’s ‘Miracle’. It looked pretty kick ass, so we went straight ahead and popped it on.

Now we all know what Derren Brown does, so I don’t need to give too much away. But he opens the show with quite a poignant suggestion about the way we live our lives – and when I say poignant, I mean (arguably) life altering. Who’d have thought that within a minute of the show starting, Ed and I would have pressed pause, looked at each in awe and had a two minute discussion about what’d just been said. THAT’S the kind of show it is.

Anyway, many wonderful and magical things happen during the show which I won’t spoil, but what I WILL tell you is that half of it has left me with the utmost respect for his brilliance, and the other half believing in magic. It’s at the end of the show when he starts to wrap things up and takes a moment to reflect, that something really hit me – it was quite a light bulb moment.

If you don’t want spoilers, look away now.

He’d said earlier in the show (and came back to it at the end) and I quote:

“We tend to dwell on our past and we think that somehow defines who we are. But our pasts are just stories we tell ourselves in the present…

…if this were the start of a film and it said ‘Based on a true story’, you would know that the events that were going to happen in that film weren’t real events exactly as they happened…you’d be naturally skeptical…

…we forget to apply the same natural skepticism to the most important stories we have, the ones we tell ourselves every day about who we are. We can choose to change those stories.”

And THAT has really resonated for me. The wealth of my anxiety comes from – Having had a bad experience (of something) in the past – Dwelling on it (and probably making the event worse in my head)– Allowing that to influence my views on it in the present. This ultimately leads me to panicking about having to repeat the same activity in the future.

I’ll give you an example.

A few years ago I was on a bus, and felt really ill. I can’t tell you whether the two were mutually exclusive or not, but now, I don’t want to get on a bus. For fear of feeling ill. Because my learned response to that situation (having told myself a certain story for all these years, as Mr Brown said), is that I WILL feel ill again. Daft right? And I know it is.

I’m much better these days at dealing with little moments of anxiety, therefore feel a bit more confident to attempt to combat them. For example, last summer before I had my car, I got the bus down to Mum and Dad’s. It’s only a 5 minute drive, but that was a big deal for me. And a stepping stone to getting better at it. But a couple of years ago anxiety really did pull on the reigns of living a ‘normal’ life.

And (going back to ‘Miracle’) something about the way he explained this – the idea of telling ourselves a story – really hit home. It may sound silly, but within that minute or so of explanation, I though ‘Holy s**t, this is so me. Hang on, this is actually going to help’. And now, I feel like I have ‘IT’S JUST A STORY’ ingrained on my cranium.

I didn’t expect that sitting down to watch a Derren Brown show would make me re-evaluate my life and the way I deal with certain situations – but it did. And don’t I wish I’d watched it a few years ago!

The show is brilliant regardless of the message, and I’m not going to say ‘OMG YOU MUST GO AND WATCH THIS NOW!’…but it really is something special.

And I leave you with a gorgeous quote from the start of the show that we loved;

“LIFE SHOULD BE MORE LIKE A PIECE OF MUSIC,
AND YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE DANCING.”

Lynette x

We managed to get through the random limbo week between Christmas and New Year, and 2018 is here!

An excellent time for reflection, to take count of what you have, what you’ve accomplished, and also maybe what you haven’t accomplished yet.

Credit: Graham Hebron Photography

I said it last year, but I don’t like to make resolutions. They feel very formal and easily breakable – perhaps we set ourselves too big a challenge, expect too much from ourselves in a short period of time. I’m no expert, I’m just going on personal experience. Instead, I like to decide upon something I’d like to try to alter slightly…

12 months ago, I said I wanted to spend less of my time on social media, especially as I use it for work. And d‘you know what, I’m quite proud of myself, because I managed to do that. I’m not saying I stayed off it completely, not at all. But I spent less of my free time mindlessly scrolling.

This year, I want to keep that up, plus I have a new ‘want’.

To say I’m a dancer/dance teacher with a Musical Theatre degree – I’m shocking at going to see shows. In 2017, I think I only went to the theatre 5 or 6 times, 3 of which happened in December, and one show I saw twice! (Obviously I’m not counting being in the theatre for work). That’s pretty bad. It’s a tricky one to be honest with you, because of work having such anti social hours – particularly for theatre visits! But I really want to make the effort to see more. Because I love it. And if I love it, I need to do it, right?

Image captured during Queen and Adam Lambert’s gig at Leeds First Direct Arena, December 2017

The other thing is just to make sure I find time for myself. This job can become incredibly consuming if you let it, which I did for a section of last year – it was near impossible to find free time, and I felt a little suffocated. I’ve been better in the last couple of months, and I will always commit 110% to whatever I’m doing at the time. I just think it’s so important to allow yourself the down time – learn when to say yes or no. And that yes or no can be applied either to work, social life or activities. None of us want to let people down, it’s just learning (for the sake of our own sanity), when we need to take the day off from running round like a headless chicken, and sit down by ourselves with a book and a cuppa. OR, when we need to say yes; to allow someone or something the ability to distract us and let our minds chill out for a while!

I was incredibly lucky to have the best year of my life. I got myself a couple of new jobs and classes that I love, I got to work with new, amazingly talented people, I made friends with some genuinely good souls, I learned to drive, passed my test and got a car, and I got the guy. My best friend of 8 years and the most incredible person. On reflection of 2017, I can’t recall a time I was this happy.

I wish you all the very best for 2018, and I’ll do my best to keep my blog up to date – I know I’ve been terrible recently at keeping a flow going. I’m now up to 6 days of work per week so I don’t know how I’ll be fixed for free time to dedicate to this…but I’ll try 😊

Hello my loves, welcome to 'life with Lynette'! I'm a frizzy, halloumi loving dance teacher/choreographer, living in North Yorkshire. I've recently given my little corner of the internet a fresh lick of paint, so enjoy my ramblings on work, lifestyle, adulting...and maybe a bit of wedding prep too! Grab a cuppa and get comfy...